Digital urbanism
Decisions you make have a big effect on how people interact online. Make sure you are paying attention.
Since the late 90s, we have seen a rapid progression of how people gather and organize online. It started person-to-person with email. Email was also used person-to-group, as anyone on a “reply all” thread can attest to. Some used “Listserv” software to make it easier for people to join and leave a conversation group.
When the web started taking off, blogs and RSS appeared, syndicating content to the masses. Forums started to pop up around this time as well, enabling more group communication. We also had wikis in both community and general public use.
Things began to change when Facebook and LinkedIn showed up. Communication shifted away from groups and towards personal broadcasts. This started dominating. Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006 ended up being “You.” This broadcast model carried on to Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, and YouTube.
Progression in person-to-group tools was slow until Slack and Discord became popular. They finally allowed people to gather in a space customized for the group. Zoom’s arrival gave us another person-to-group tool. As a bonus, Zoom is also suitable for person-to-person communication.
ActivityPub: a new investment opportunity
We are finally now at a point where the ActivityPub protocol is gaining popularity. ActivityPub has been around for several years now with a core group of enthusiastic fans. But now the downfall of Twitter has caused many people to look for alternatives. Mastodon, the largest ActivityPub network, recorded over ten million accounts this past weekend.
ActivityPub is an important investment. It is an open source protocol adopted by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The W3C maintains documentation for ActivityPub. There are helpful diagrams and example scenarios describing how the protocol works.
It did not look like ActivityPub was necessarily going to take off at first. But now several companies have announced future ActivityPub compatibility. It will be interesting to see how these companies follow through on this commitment. While we would hope they follow it, they may deviate from the spirit of the protocol if not the protocol itself. But even if they do deviate, the sudden shift to Mastodon is revelatory. ActivityPub will be central to the next wave of the Internet.
Seeing the ActivityPub protocol getting adopted is heartening. But it is only half of the equation. You need to have both the technology and the social fluidity to make online communities work. You cannot have a bunch of protocols without people who are invested. You need participants who are willing to make a space that is unique, inviting, and worth people’s time. And without available protocols, organizers spend more energy to make the space work. This energy could go towards more participation, but instead goes to technical maintenance.
This combination is what I call digital urbanism. Digital urbanism is the practice of combining digital infrastructure with social organizing. Let’s look at several examples of digital urbanism that have taken shape over the last three decades.
Examples of digital urbanism
Hashtags are one of the most well-known examples of digital urbanism. Users of Twitter created hashtags before they were broadly recognized. Once people started using the hashtags, it became easier for people to search for them. Once people started finding hashtags, it became easier to start organizing around them. They became popular enough that Twitter incorporated them into the platform. Twitter began indexing hashtags for easier searching and tracking.
A similar process happened with retweeting. Retweeting was first manually adding the letters “RT” before somebody else’s tweet. Several of the early Twitter apps were made by users who happened to be software engineers. These apps made it easy to retweet items. They also interpreted and removed the “RT” on the other end, showing the original author.
There are also examples where social media has not supported digital urbanism innovations. In one instance, “buy nothing” groups have popped up on Facebook. The idea is to have a place where you can give away items for free. Each group has rules for how much you can post and how much you can take, but they are usually enforced informally. Facebook has not built features to encourage and promote the “buy nothing” culture. Instead, it has added Marketplace for selling second-hand goods.
In another example, people will set up “quiet coworking” Zoom calls. You are not expected to do a lot of talking on these calls. Instead, the idea is that you join to create the atmosphere of being in a room with other people who are also working. It is a way of adding some lightweight accountability for times when you want to get something done. Zoom does not prevent you from using it for quiet coworking. But it also does not do anything in particular to help you find people to join in this way.
Social media does not just ignore the digital urbanism practiced by their users. It uses algorithms that are in direct opposition. The algorithm-driven nature of these sites have well-documented negative side effects. Users’ attention is held for as long as possible so platforms can display as many ads as possible.
Because of this, people often have to game the algorithm to make their voices heard. This is still true even if the people who want to listen are already following. Interactions recorded by these platforms are then mined. This data is then used to make the platform even more effective at holding attention.
Where do we go from here?
People are waking up. Social media is in decline. Twitter is collapsing. People are looking for more control and more flexibility. We want tools that serve our needs, rather than serve the needs of the tools. We want communities we can establish and turn to, rather than have our attention abused.
As software engineers, we are both users and creators of software. The decisions we make have strong ripple effects. We can continue to help feed algorithms. Or we can support other users. If we choose to support other users, our biggest task is to follow the evolving culture as people create it.
The more flexibility we can build into software, the better. Flexible systems enable users to create unique solutions, solving problems for their communities. As these solutions become more popular, software can adapt to better support them.
As you look to make your investments in software, make sure they are serving people. We have more than enough software out there that does not. While this is frustrating, there is hope. We can turn this around.